Entry 284

Open questions after the triage: the effects and the streams' effect tasks

rendervideo

This entry answers the question left open by Models have their own blend: alphaBlendTbl by the header's blend type, and the title's glows are additive, Stream 2's effect task: feedback, raster noise and fades, and frame-buffer textures, piney-effect: the arrival, hits and numbers, the five spell systems, Data Drain, portals and particles, checked against the game, The skills' other effects: skill starts, rings, the shock wave, heals, cures, stat changes and the resistant shield, The magic portal fades out as the monsters come out: its objects at their own transparency, Data Drain's movie: the stream by the target, its resident files, and the enemy drawn into it, "Skeith in the field: the boss entry, its task each frame, and what it asks of the area", "Skeith's camera: ccBossCam behind Kite, facing the boss", "The dungeon objects' effects: crystals, breakables, trap boxes and the Statue of God's glow", "Skeith's pictures: the effects, the cross's trail, the reversed layer and the arena's fireflies", "The runners' dust: ccEffPawSmoke at Kite's and the party's feet", Streams 3, 4 and 6's effect tasks and the letterbox, "Streams 7, 8 and 9's effect tasks: a transfer, hit marks and a turned feedback", "Streams 11 to 14 and 16's effect tasks", "The drain streams' effect tasks and the Data Drain banner", "The gate hack's and streams 112-119's effect tasks", "Skeith's cinema: the bars and the skill's name", The streams' own effects: effcStr's hit marks and transfers, checked against the game, "Stream 15's effect tasks: the ending's puffs, rocks and shades", "Stream 15's opening: the black is the game's, and the stream lights' order", "Data Drain's side effects on screen, and the areas' light group checked", The streams' models clip at their view's divZ, "The streams' effect nodes: str0001's clouds", "The enemies' weapon trails and flashes: ccEnemyWeaponCtrl", "The fire breath: ccEnemyBreath, and the controllers of a field's first enemies", "Skeith's stall and the drain's dither: stream files read ahead, vertex alpha as the GS's integer", "The skills' starts, the shock waves and the condition effects in play; DispConditionEffect ported and checked against the game", "The party's weapon trails and element particles: ccSpcChar::ArmsEffect on ccLattice", The symbol's light reaches 1000, An enemy's condition effect outlived a Data Drain: clearConditionEnemy's ClearConditionEffect carried out, Skeith's ice rocks fell through the floor: ccEffect::Main's last cases ported, Mutation's attack spells: the ccSkill's request-time aim and the later release.

FilesUNKNOWNS.md

This entry closes the open questions of 32 entries about the effects: the effect system (piney-effect), particles, the bosses' pictures and the in-engine streams' effect tasks. The triage of 2026-09-28 (UNKNOWNS.md) split every entry's open paragraph into single questions and checked each one against the later log, the docs and the code. The answered ones are listed below with their evidence. What is still open is restated at the end, with the entry that asked it, the play questions first. Open questions of these entries that belong to another subsystem are restated in that subsystem's entry: 282, 283, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289 and 291.

Answered

  • 57: stream 2's fog — answered by 127, 145
  • 57: the table's 21 other effect tasks — answered by 85, 121, 122, 124, 125, 126, 133 (all of Infection's)
  • 79: piney-effect not called by the runtime — answered by 80, 81
  • 79: effSkillStart and effSkillStartEffect — answered by 83, 195
  • 79: the exec rings and the physical skills' shock wave — answered by 83, 195
  • 79: heals, cures, Sanity, Resurrect, stat changes, the resistant shield — answered by 83, 194
  • 79: opening boxes, removing traps, the breakables' fragments — answered by 98, 116, 140
  • 79: the in-engine streams' effects — answered by 131
  • 83: the new starters not wired into piney-game's fx.rs — answered by 194, 195
  • 83: the breakables' crush and fragment effects, the bosses' own deaths — answered by 116, 140; Skeith's death effects by GAPS.md "Stale lines" (BeginDeadEffect, ccBossEffDead)
  • 105: Func_str8000, the drain streams' effect task — answered by 125
  • 113: the cross's trail, the six effects, the reversed layer and the quake — answered by 115, 117
  • 113: ccBossCam and the dead camera — answered by 115 (tools/test_bosscam_rs.py)
  • 115: DrawCross's trail, the six effects and the reversed layer — answered by 117
  • 116: the idol's dust ring — answered by 118 (an idol opening)
  • 116: no shot of a barrel smashed or a trap going off — answered by 148 (a breakable broken in play)
  • 117: Skeith's cinema — answered by 128 (tools/test_cinema_rs.py)
  • 117: the fields' type-1 fireflies (SetBasePosition2) — answered by 130 / crates/piney-world/src/firefly.rs (tools/test_field_ambient_rs.py)
  • 119: effSmoke's other callers — answered by 190
  • 121: Func_str0090's and Func_str0110's fog — answered by 127
  • 121: the effect tasks of streams 7-9 and 11-16 and the str7xxx-str9xxx scenes — answered by 122, 124, 125, 126, 133
  • 122: what the marks and the transfer look like in a stream (ccThEffectStr) — answered by 131 (tools/test_effect_str_rs.py)
  • 122: stream 7's fog — answered by 127
  • 122: the tasks of streams 11-16 and the str7xxx-str9xxx scenes — answered by 124, 125, 126, 133
  • 124, 126, 131: stream 15's Func_str0580 and Func_str0581 — answered by 133
  • 124: the str7100, str8000, str8800 and str9xxx tasks — answered by 125, 126
  • 124: the marks and transfers (ccThEffectStr) — answered by 131
  • 124: the fog of streams 13 and 16 — answered by 127
  • 125: stream 20's fog — answered by 127
  • 125: Func_str7100, Func_str8800, Func_str0580 and 0581 — answered by 126, 133
  • 128: the cinema's other names (the other bosses' rows, x01-x04) — answered by crates/piney-world/src/cinema.rs (all 72 rows of _g_cinemaSkillName; tools/test_cinema_rs.py)
  • 133: the shades on the GPU (REGION_REPEAT as a plain repeat) — answered by 146
  • 133: VU1's clip at divZ for stream 15 — answered by 153
  • 136: piney-gs clipping at a fixed 1000, not divZ — answered by 153
  • 195: the party's weapon trails (ccSpcChar::ArmsEffect) and StartArmsEffect's particles — answered by 197
  • 280: Mutation's convergence aim, effSkillChargeObj's new argument, the drill's endFlag — answered by 281 (tools/test_effect_spell_rs.py on MUT, 0 mismatches)
Still unknown
  • (play) [[79]], [[231]]: SetFogSw and SetShadowSw on the spell pieces (and on other objects that turn fog off; only the gate was fixed), and the drill's ccDrawEnv settings, are not modelled (docs/engine/effects.md) — spells and objects fogged or shadowed where the game turns it off. - (play) [[79]]: the explosions' palette swaps are kept on the element but not drawn (docs/engine/effects.md) — the spell explosions' colours. - (play) docs/engine/effects.md: ccEntryChangeCLUT swaps every texture on the palette, where the game swaps per material — enemies whose palette-swapped texture shares a palette. - (play) [[170]]: the enemies' weapon flashes (and the boxes') put a light in the scene's light group in the game; the port does not — characters not lit by the flashes. - (play) [[266]]: Innis's pictures are not drawn: the missiles, SamonRings, particle generators, blur, shield, the mirrors' shards; the MagicSquare for n 1 and 2 (docs/engine/boss-innis.md) — Mutation's first boss. - (play) [[274]]: Magus's pictures are named, not drawn: the leaves' markers, charges and bursts, the laser's shocks and thunder, the needles, the smoke; the body's dropped leaves are not hidden (docs/engine/boss-magus.md) — Mutation's Magus. - (play) [[280]]: Innis's ice missile and Fidchell's IceBreak are not ported, so nothing throws their rocks — Mutation's and Outbreak's bosses. - (volumes) [[280]], [[281]]: Outbreak's and Quarantine's sqrt.s in the distance fade and their one-ulp float differences; whether the per-volume hooks and the 42-spike wave make upheaval agree there; not rerun. - [[17]]: the effect program beyond its entry point (docs/engine/render.md Unknown). - [[79]]: undefined behaviour taken one way: odd sizes or drain types, stack leftovers as 0, the goblin summons' read (docs/engine/effects.md Unknown). - [[83]]: effResistantShield with no affectPerson reads through a null pointer (game UB; docs/engine/effects.md Unknown). - [[83]]: effHeal's return: the game returns 0, the port its slot; no caller uses it. - [[79]]: a sprite's fog: Prim has no fog, and the effects' own sprites never fog (docs/engine/effects.md). - [[100]]: whether ccAnm::Draw of a fog-off clump (the portal) takes the field's lights; the port draws it unlit. - [[156]]: effect nodes in other files' ccAnm clumps; none found (docs/engine/effects.md Unknown). - [[170]]: what a stream's decoded dummy chunk holds at +0x10 and +0x20; the port takes the file's place, w 1, degrees as radians. - [[280]]: what ccEffect::Main ids 0, 113 and -11..-8 were for; nothing makes them. - [[280]]: what a real PS2 keeps at address 0, which the -11..-8 case would overwrite. - [[281]]: why Mutation moved the spells' releases (93, 120, 60, 100). - [[281]]: AreaFx::spell requests a spell at its first system call, so +0x70 is the target's place at count 0; a runtime asking earlier must pass it. - [[238]]: whether any skill's animation draws (no clump; nothing draws +0x80). - [[279]]: whether effAbilityDown's icon rows include a staff; the rows are not rendered one by one. - [[279]]: whether a killed foe's condition effect fades or ends at once (DispConditionEffect against the game's delete order). - [[266]]: which clump the game draws the Epitaph's ANM_ex2x* clips on. - [[272]]: which of CMP_ex01gom2-4 each gomora draws (docs/engine/boss-kyvia.md Unknown). - [[117]], [[128]]: ccBossBlur is not ported; whether Skeith's fight blurs depends on the heap (docs/engine/boss.md "Not described yet"). - [[127]]: what SetFog(0, 0, ...)'s divisions by zero leave in fogA/fogB (stream 4); taken as no fog. [[267]] meets the same in Func_str0932. - [[131]]: strEffectStopFlag is never set by anything the port runs; its setter in the game is not named. - [[53]]: blend types 2 and 3: the streams are not surveyed for them. - [[55]]: whether any stream uses a morph weight that is negative or 8 or more. - [[57]]: the rand state when stream 2 starts; the port matches only from a known state (docs/engine/stream.md Unknown). - [[104]]: a noise band's copy past the draw buffer reads 0, as in the stream. - [[130]]: the field's smoke puffs start a frame late (docs/engine/field.md Unknown). - [[141]]: Data Drain step 10's effects start at the next effect task, so their rand() draws come a frame late (docs/engine/field-ui.md "Not yet known or not ported"). - [[165]]: the effects' shakes are applied after the frame, not inside the effect task (only the rand() order within the frame). - [[172]]: the run-time's bursts draw ccRand after the entry control's frame (ordering). - [[160]]: the console's choice between the direct and the clipped shadow path (a pipelined sticky sign); they differ only past Z 0x7fffffff (docs/engine/shadow.md). - [[118]], [[119]]: the runners' dust: no shot of it, and the feet's pose is the port's stance at the start against the game's last draw. - [[175]]: whether the window showed Skeith's lag worse than the headless run; not measured in the window. - [[175]]: the drain's erasing of the figure is inferred from the rules. - [[53]]: the glows and stream 2's figure are checked against the code, not a console frame. - [[57]]: stream 2's effect task: the packets are checked, not the pixels and timing. - [[105]]: the drained enemy's look in the movie; its lights are worked out at its matrix. - [[117]]: the trail's projection, the reversed sprite and the light on the characters' shading, checked by eye only. - [[133]], [[136]]: stream 15's parts and opening against a game frame; the draws and the draw state are checked. - [[136]]: the other streams' light pictures (3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 16) (docs/engine/stream.md Unknown). - [[153]]: a close-up of streams 5 or 15 against the game; str0581's divZ 3000 and stream 5's 500 not looked at frame by frame (docs/engine/stream.md Unknown). - [[156]]: str0001's clouds against the game's picture. - [[141]]: the Data Drain side effects' pixels. - [[149]], [[155]]: the symbols' fires and light frame by frame, and the cast on a lake symbol and its puffs on screen. - [[234]]: the symbol room's darkness against a picture of the real game; the light values are harness-checked. - [[162]]: the growing-up particles and the foods' look against the console. - [[172]]: the flames against a game picture; the sprite's turn (+0x28) stays 0. - [[172]]: the first enemies' weapon trails and dust, not looked at after the fix. - [[195]]: the skill starts and shock waves against the game's pictures in play. - [[197]]: the weapon trails and particles against the game's pictures. - [[197]]: orange specks far off in the Flame Dance shots come from none of the weapon generators; which effect draws them is unknown. - [[197]]: a member's StartArmsEffect is not seen in play; the hands' matrices are the port's pose. - [[83]]: the new particle generator rows are seen only in shots (docs/engine/effects.md Unknown).